Ron Reid, one of the local (Alamo, Danville, San Ramon, Pleasanton,, Walnut Creek) home inspectors we use has been kind enough to share a letter he sends out to homeowners and agents prior to a home inspection to make sure everything goes smoothly at the inspection.

Thank you for placing your Home Inspection order with Gold Seal Inspection scheduled for Thursday July 17th at 2:00 pm.  After 14 years in the inspection business, we have seen many cycles in the real estate market.  We are now in a time where some changes are in order to make both the inspector and real estate agent professionally successful.

Currently we as inspectors are experiencing a 93% rate of the utilities being OFF at the time of our inspection appointment.  Buyers are now vocalizing their dissatisfaction at this event.   Gold Seal Inspection will always make a return trip to finish the inspection once the utilities are restored.  However, please keep in mind that our fee for returning for the re-inspection is $195.  We request that the $ 195 fee be paid at the time of re-inspection only; escrow billing of this fee has been fruitless. 
 
For liability reasons, inspectors routinely DO NOT turn on any utilities.   That would include; water mains and house valves, main and sub electrical panels, and gas mains or light gas fixtures. Homes that are vacant for any length of time require an on-site utility professional to restore the house to working order for safety reasons. 
 
Your may also encounter homes that have been WINTERIZED after being vacant for a period of time.  This means that a pluming contractor has turned off all utilities, removed flexible gas lines and drained the water heater.  In some cases, padlocks have been placed on utility access points that prevent vandalism.
 
Re-establishing utility service in some cases take up to 2 weeks.
 
Please make every effort to ensure that all utilities are turned on prior to scheduling a home inspection for the sake of all of us, especially your buyers.
 
If you require help in determining if a utility is active while you are on-site, don’t hesitate to call us.
 
Respectfully,
 
Ron Reid
Gold Seal Inspection

Having the utilities on for a home inspection sounds like common sense doesn’t it? Ron told me that with all of the bank owned properties and foreclosures on the market these days, situations like this are cropping up more and more.

It seems incredible that an upset home buyer would throw a rock through a Realtors windshield or throw a clipboard at their real estate agent – but, Ron has actually witnessed these events. Home buyers don’t like showing up for an appointment and discover that their real estate agent wasn’t competent enough to insure the utilities were on.

Ron is one of the few home inspectors in the area that is actually a licensed general contractor. If your inspector says they are a licensed contractor ask for their license number.

The residents of popular Danville neighborhoods of Shadow Hills, Greenbrook and Crow Canyon Estates are served by a terrific website – www.GreenbrookNeighbors.com.

• Are you looking to advertise a garage sale?
• Do you have furniture to sell?
• Need a neighborhood babysitter?
• Looking to buy a home in Greenbrook?
• Or sell your Danville home?

Find it all right here…even easy recipes for dinner, lost pets, neighborhood activities, pictures, etc…all FREE for the wonderful; residents of Greenbrook, Shadow Hills, and Crow Canyon Estates.

We’ve used GreenbrookNeighbors to promote our very successful neighborhood garage sales for 30 to 40 homes in the neighborhood.

Tell your friends about this site…they can register to receive the neighborhood newsletter and find out what’s going on in Greenbrook or Shadow Hills!

IT Management and outsourcing is moving up the list of must-haves for successful small businesses.

Information Technology Management for the greater San Francisco Bay Area continues to grow in importance for small to mid-size companies. Endsight, an IT Management company located in Berkeley, CA continues to grow its business as demand for IT outsourcing increases from small to mid-size businesses in San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Sacramento and other communities around the greater Bay Area.

I have been providing Internet Marketing consulting to Endsight for a couple of months now. If it works out, I will be over in Berkeley tomorrow for my first face-to-face with the IT Management professionals at Endsight. Endsight, like many businesses in the East Bay, wants to increase their presence on the Internet in a way that leads to more clients for their Proactive and Reactive IT Management Support.

One example I will use to point out the power of blogging is this post on TransparentRE - Thank You Trulia. 

If you read that post you will see how I wanted to move a post on our real estate site - san ramon homes for sale - up in Google rankings. Well, I just Googled - san ramon real estate for sale - and the results you can plainly see - Now @ #2.

So, whether you are in real estate or information technology, blogging is a simple, yet powerful way to build your web presence. It doesn't matter if you are in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco or outside of the Bay Area.

If you're looking for expert advice on Internet Marketing for IT Management, Portable Toilets, Silicon Valley Business Sales, or anything else in the East Bay - contact me (925) 895-2694 

7727 Fairoaks Drive
Pleasanton, California

Offered at $769,000

The owner/contractor of this west side beauty in Pleasanton has done a wonderful job upgrading this property. Immaculate landscaping and lots of upgrades and special touches on the inside make this home a real attention getter.

Located close to Stoneridge Mall, this home is convenient to everything Pleasanton has to offer. The neighborhood is quiet and established. Friendly neighbors make this a wonderful place to call home.

This beautifully remodeled rancher has an open, light bright floor plan.

The Kitchen/Family/Dining Great Room is the heart of the home: with a gourmet kitchen including “Cashew” maple cabinets, bullnosed granite slab counters, Frigidaire Gallery stainless steel appliances including the refrigerator.

The home has recessed lighting, new doors, baseboards & trims, AC, dual pane windows, re-textured & bull-nosed ceilings & walls, custom light fixtures, newer carpet, and updated baths including travertine floors & surround, cherry cabinets & granite vanity in the master bath.

The private backyard offers a peaceful sanctuary for the end of a busy day: new French drains, professional landscaping, including an automatic sprinkler/drip system, and side yard access with RV/Boat storage on the side. The home has a new Trane furnace, and finished garage with window.

Conveniently located on the Westside: close to I680/I580 interchange, BART, Stoneridge Mall & Award-winning Pleasanton schools.

Click for Street View Map

Get FREE Local Market Detail Reports on all East Bay Communities Here

Contact Us if You’re Thinking of a Career in Real Estate or a Change in the Industry

There’s a great deal of interest in going green these days and a lot of that interest is in green housing. National attention to energy costs and the environment are heating up the green campaign.

As you can imagine there is a lot of interest in California’s East Bay communities around going green and green housing. We are hearing the phrase more and more at the Realtors Marketing Meeting in San Ramon. The RMA meeting also serves Alamo and Danville. Contractors are giving more and more attention to the green word.

You may recall the massive tornado that leveled Greensburg, Kansas a year ago. Greensburg is rebuilding it self as a totally green community – GreensburgGreenTown.

Before deciding to turn your entire town or neighborhood green, you might want to read this article posted by Jeff Echols.

Are We Too Green?

It happened last night. I was listening to homeowners who had volunteered to be test cases for the Irvington Green Initiative's "Recognition Program." We were holding a forum designed to produce honest feedback after two months of working within our guidelines and criteria. This was it; the big test. The Committee had worked for several months to design the program and develop the criteria which these families, some experienced "greenies," some not, had graciously agreed to "test."

That's when the bomb dropped. Maybe it wasn't a bomb so much as a rising tide, a tsunami perhaps. Anyway, it started with a person that works for one of the "greenest" organizations around. It was then added to by someone from a family who has been making extraordinary strides towards sustainable ends. And suddenly the culmination of the discussion began to revolve around the fact that the very structure that we had created was inherently wrong.

Now if that didn't take the wind out of my energy conserving sail. We had modeled our process, our forms and our criteria on a number of national programs. We had given thoughtful consideration to the requirements and difficulty of progressive levels. We had … well it just doesn't matter does it?

The tide that had risen and washed over us was the point that the program was too complicated and even intimidating, especially for those who were wanting to get their feet wet so-to-speak in being green. And it's an excellent point; possibly one of the best, straight to the essence points of the evening.

It sure got me to think. I started to think about all of the work I've done with LEED and with the NAHB Guidelines; the builders and clients that I've talked to; the interviews that I've done; the blog posts that I've written. If you're reading this you're probably in the same boat. Green is what you do. You're informed, you're educated, and you're continually learning and pushing the green envelope. But that, as it turns out, was the problem.

At the core of what we're trying to do at IGI is not reward homeowners for achieving some hardly attainable Platinum Standard. What we're striving for is to recognize those who make green strides as a way of introducing green to our community and, in turn, spreading the message and winning new converts.

Unfortunately, we fell into what's become a common mindset these days. While we're all measuring our carbon footprints, performing life cycle cost analyses and counting food miles, we may be forgetting about the fact that no matter how close to zero energy we get, there are 10 people out there that don't even know that it's possible to stop their junk mail.

Obviously, I'm not advocating giving up on any of these aspects of Green or the Green lifestyle in any way. But let's not forget that we may be able to have more impact by teaching 5 of our neighbors 3 simple things that they can do everyday to be more Green.

Jeff makes a very good point that comes often in many different situations - is it more effective to have a multitude do a little or a few do a lot?

If you have thoughts or comments on green housing issues in San Ramon, Danville, or Alamo, CA leave us a comment.